Mickey Hess – Short

“Wait,” he reasoned. She strove to believe him. “I cart-wheeled around town like some show-business chimp.”

She hoped it wasn’t coming to this, to more whining remarks.

“I danced six polkas a night for you. I opened for Ben fucking Vereen,” he spat. He had done it. Out in Vegas, nobody stays broke for long.

She sank half-heartedly, drooping into the mint-colored chair her husband had ordered. While he spoke, etcetera, she reclined. “I headed out West. I lived on pot brownies,” he gasped, mixing his metaphors the way she’d insisted was cute when they met. It took a slow February for her to start to feel differently. Fame had changed him, she mentioned.

He rolled his eyes, glancing into the living room. He glimpsed the desk, the TV remote, and he tried not to want it all.

A divorce. He paused. Staying together without her loving him, or divorce. Casually, he slipped the TV remote into his pocket. “You’re my wife,” he said. “I respect that.”

She laughed. She felt differently.

A month from now, he’ll be playing Hamlet in a prison theatre.

“I’m sad,” she said. Because there they were, has-beens, a couple of uncomfortable telephone technicians watching the wires shut down.